Banks association asks NPCI to scrap MDR on UPI, RuPay card transactions

The Indian Banks’ Association has written to the National Payments Council of India (NPCI), which enables digital payments and settlements in India, to ask for retrospective application of zero merchant discount rate for Rupay card and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in the last Budget that no charge would be levied on UPI and Rupay transactions.

MDR is the fees a merchant pays to a bank for accepting payment from their customers via cards or UPI. Firms like Google Pay and PhonePe have spent a lot in building UPI infrastructure, and will likely be